


the silver lining of clouds shines

by sabrinachill



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-26
Updated: 2019-02-26
Packaged: 2019-11-05 19:33:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17924999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sabrinachill/pseuds/sabrinachill
Summary: He doesn’t so much see Alex approach as hear him,feelhim. The careful, deliberately even steps, punctuated by the sharp strike of the crutch against the ground. The way the air around them seems to charge, sparking electricity, the current snapping between them before either even says a word.Michael bites his lip and folds his arms across his chest, willing his traitorous heart to stop beating so hard. Alex has been clear about his feelings — or, more accurately, his lack thereof. He doesn’t want this to continue. So he shouldn’t be here.“Careful not to come too close,” Michael drawls. “My bad reputation might start to rub off on you.”Alex is finally taking shape against the night, dressed in a blue plaid shirt and dark jeans, his hair an artful mess. “That’s not the part of you I was hoping to rub off on.”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [johnconstantine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/johnconstantine/gifts).



> Written for a Tumblr prompt: “I’m too sober for this.” 
> 
> Title from Third Eye Blind’s “I Want You.”

Michael has a roaring fire crackling in the pit outside his Airstream, tendrils of smoke rising through the crisp night air toward the stars twinkling overhead. 

He spent the better part of the day rebuilding the engine of an ’69 Camaro and it earned him aching muscles and grease stains that darken the underside of his fingernails despite having showered less than ten minutes ago. His curls are still damp, tiny water droplets falling onto the shoulders of his soft, worn t-shirt, and he’s sprawled in one of his stolen lawn chairs, his old jeans slung low on his hips. 

He’d normally be headed to The Wild Pony right about now, in search of someone to fight or fuck, depending on what the available options were. But not tonight. Tonight he just wants the quiet of the dark desert and some time alone with his best friend for the past decade, the infamous Mr. Jack Daniels.

And he’s just settling in, one smoky swallow burning in his belly and another working its way down his throat, when he hears tires crunching over the junkyard’s gravel drive. Seconds later headlights engulf him, reflecting off the shiny metal of his Airstream and blinding him to everything else. The world is white and bright and _painful_ — and then it falls back to black. The lights cut off with the engine, but it takes his eyes a moment to adjust.

So he doesn’t so much see Alex approach as hear him, _feel_ him. The careful, deliberately even steps, punctuated by the sharp strike of the crutch against the ground. The way the air around them seems to charge, sparking electricity, the current snapping between them before either even says a word. 

Michael bites his lip and folds his arms across his chest, willing his traitorous heart to stop beating so hard. Alex has been clear about his feelings — or, more accurately, his lack thereof. He doesn’t want this to continue.

So he shouldn’t be here.

“Careful not to come too close,” Michael drawls. “My bad reputation might start to rub off on you.”

Alex is finally taking shape against the night, dressed in a blue plaid shirt and dark jeans, his hair an artful mess. “That’s not the part of you I was hoping to rub off on.”

Michael’s eyebrows climb halfway up his forehead, a slow smile spreading across his face. “Oh, so it’s like _that,_ is it?”

Alex shakes his head a little, almost privately, as if he’s ashamed at himself. “No, actually, it’s not. Sorry — old habits.”

“Well, that’s kind of our whole thing, isn’t it? Just an old habit?”

“I hope not,” Alex says, squaring his shoulders in that way that makes Michael imagine him in his sharply pressed uniform. “That’s why I’m here.” 

Alex looks around for a second before gesturing with his chin at one of the half dozen empty chairs scattered around the fire. “May I?”

Michael sweeps an arm expansively, the bottle dangling from his fingertips. “Be my guest.”

So Alex sits, awkwardly. Not because of the crutch or prosthetic or pain, but simply because the last time he was at this trailer he was sneaking out in the brilliant morning sunshine with his underwear and dignity shoved in his pockets. And then he’d tried to make things better at the drive-in, only to wind up making them infinitely worse, and then there were days of silence and now…

The square bottle is still mostly full of rich, amber bourbon, the orange firelight dancing in its depths. Michael wraps his lips around the neck and takes a long, burning pull, feeling Alex’s eyes on him the entire time. 

“Could you put the booze down, please?”

“Nope,” Michael says, popping the ‘p’ sound. “Because I don’t know exactly what’s happening, but I know I’m too sober for this… whatever it is.”

“It’s an apology, first.” Alex shifts in the chair, as if he’s trying to find a way to simultaneously slouch and sit up straight. 

Michael feels like he’s looking at three Alexs all at once. The emo high school boy he loved, the uptight Airman, and the warm, messy mix of the two that has been such a frequent guest in his bed of late.

But none of those Alexs seem remotely comfortable right now. He shifts again, rubbing one hand at his prosthetic, the other squeezing the arm of the rickety chair so hard that it creaks. 

Michael should probably say something to help him out, but he’s tired and still angry and, honestly, kind of a dick sometimes. So he stays silent.

“I’m sorry,” Alex eventually says, and it should be lame, and futile, and not enough, but it’s none of those things. Because he says those words the way they were always intended to be — as a genuine expression of regret, not a meaningless way to sweep an argument under a rug. 

So Michael meets his eyes, then carefully sets the bottle on the dirt at his feet.

“What I said to you at the drive-in…” Alex trails off, staring into the depths of the fire as if he’s hoping its burning light will scorch the memory from his mind. “It was cruel, it was wrong, and I didn’t mean it. I just…you make me feel like I’m seventeen again, and that’s not always a good thing. It’s like a part of me reverts and becomes vulnerable to my horrible father’s terrible opinions, so I let him get inside my head again and I hurt the one person I want to protect most. And I am just so, so sorry for that."

Michael has no skills for dealing with actual emotions beyond drinking or destructiveness, but he already put the bottle down and — for once — he doesn’t want to break anything. And Alex is sitting right there and being so raw and _real—_

 _—_ So he figures he owes it to him to at least _try._

Michael takes a deep breath, licks his lips, and leans forward, his forearms braced on his denim-clad thighs.

“Thank you. I, uh, I appreciate you coming here and saying that.”

Alex smirks at him, strangely seeming more at ease now that Michael is as uncomfortable as he was a moment ago. “There’s more, if you’re interested.”

Michael rubs at the back of his neck and sighs, rolling his eyes at himself. “I think we’ve established that when it comes to you, I’m always interested.”

“Good. Because I also wanted to tell you that I’m ready. I want this. I’m ready to finally live my life in public, my father and the military and this backwards, homophobic town be damned.” 

He stands up and walks very slowly and deliberately around the fire, the sand and gravel crunching beneath his shoes. His words are still ringing in Michael’s head, swirling and reverberating, and Michael’s not sure whether he’s had too much to drink or not nearly enough but he stands and meets Alex halfway, resting his good hand on his waist in case Alex needs the support. 

He doesn’t. He’s rock solid. 

“I love you, Michael Guerin. Always have. Pretty sure I always will. And I will never hide that, or run from the truth, ever again.”

It would be so easy for Michael to kiss him. To take that final half step forward and run his fingertips across those familiar, clean-shaven cheeks, to taste the peppermint on his tongue and lose himself in the heat of his skin.

But that last sentence, and the words “hide” and “truth,” are echoing all around him. 

He remembers Isobel’s wedding day, the tears that shone in her eyes as she took her vows. Everyone else thought they were from happiness; only he and Max knew the truth. That they were tears of pain. And regret. That they were a crack in her perfect mask, the one she would have to wear every day for the rest of her life in order to shield her lies.

And then he thinks about her tears as she’d sat right here a few days ago, sobbing in a satin nightgown and his socks, the sound of Noah’s engine fading away in the distance as he left her behind.

_Maybe it’s time we all tell the truth to the people we love._

“There’s something you should know about me first,” he says, blurting it out before he gets a chance to think about it, to think about the dozens of very real reasons why he shouldn’t take this step.

Because all that matters is the reason why he _should_ , and that reason is standing right in front of him with his heart on his sleeve and his soul bared.

Michael thinks it’s only fair that he do the same. 

“I…” Michael stops short, panicking a little. He never thought about how he would tell someone the truth of what he is, because he never planned to say it out loud. And now he’s standing here, with Alex staring at him and his heart racing and he’s utterly unprepared, with no clue how to make his mouth shape the most important words he’ll ever say. 

But Michael believes in being direct.

So he just blows a stray curl out of his eyes and thinks, _fuck it_. 

“I’m an alien, Alex.” 


	2. Chapter 2

The firelight flickers across Alex’s face, making it hard to read his expression at first. A log pops, sending a shower of sparks flying out into the dark.

Michael’s heart is hammering so hard that he can’t hear anything except the rush of blood inside his head, his fingers curled so tightly that the nails threaten to leave half-moon imprints in his calloused palms.

Alex blinks, once, twice — and then he _laughs_. 

“God, Michael, I thought you were going to tell me that you had two weeks left to live or had murdered someone and buried them out in the desert or something.” He loops his arms around Michael’s neck, his smile a brilliant white against the darkness. 

Michael frowns and carefully, deliberately, removes Alex’s arms from his shoulders. “You don’t believe me.” It’s not a question; Alex’s demeanor removes any doubt.

Alex tilts his head, his tone flirtatious. “Let’s just say that I’m fairly well acquainted with your anatomy, and it seems perfectly human to me.” 

He’s still smiling but it’s tighter now; there’s something pinching at the back of his dark eyes and a muscle in his cheek compresses the corner of that easy smile just a fraction, just the tiniest amount.

He’s good. He’s a goddamned _liar,_ but he’s good at it. 

No one but Michael would ever know.

The synapses in that computer-like brain of Michael’s start firing, making connections and deductions and hypotheses, and it all leads him to one conclusion.

Alex knows something. Something _big._

“You know what?” Michael asks, plastering on the mask of cowboy swagger, a broad smile painting his face but never reaching toward his eyes. He rests his thumbs on his belt as he takes a step back. “It’s kinda cold out here. I think you need a blanket."

Behind him, the trailer’s door opens with a creak. Seconds later, a rumpled blanket from Michael’s bed floats through, flying like a pale ghost on the desert wind until it wraps itself snugly around Alex’s shoulders.

Alex doesn’t move. He doesn’t blink, and his chest isn’t rising and falling with his breath; Michael wishes he hadn’t let him go so he could feel for Alex’s pulse beneath his skin, make sure his heart was still beating.

“You’re one of them,” Alex finally breathes, the whisper somehow seeming to echo and multiply as it bounces around the junkyard.

And now it’s Michael’s turn to freeze. “What?”

“One of the aliens we — the military, I mean — are here to capture and study.”

Michael takes a few steps back, feeling for the truck keys in his pocket. He doesn’t want to knock Alex out and run, but if what he’s saying is true, if they know and they’re coming for him, for Max, for _Iz—_

“You need to tell me exactly what you’re talking about right the fuck now.”

Alex finally meets his eyes, his face gone slack with shock, his dark eyes seeming to glow as black as the sky above them.

“Foster Ranch. The military acquired the land in order to construct a top secret base to study extraterrestrial life that they believed was inhabiting the greater Roswell area. I… I didn’t really believe it. I thought they’d been drinking the conspiracy theorist Kool-Aid, that they sent me here because I was damaged, because my father pulled some strings, that the whole project was bull, but now… and you… “

Alex trails off, shaking, stumbling. He catches the heel of his prosthetic on a chair leg and nearly falls into the fire pit, but Michael reaches out to catch him with his mind, easing him into the chair beside him. He didn’t think it through before he acted, and he expects Alex to be horrified, disgusted—

—instead, it seems to be the thing that manages to crack through Alex’s shock. 

He looks up at Michael and smiles. “Thanks.”

“Anytime,” Michael mutters.

And then they sit in silence for a long, long time.

“You have to leave,” Alex finally says. “You have to leave Roswell and never come back. With the technology and resources at the Air Force’s disposal, running is the only chance you have of them not discovering you.”

And there’s a thousand things Michael could say. A thousand ways to brush it aside, to delay his answer, to blow this off in typical Guerin fashion. Instead, he chooses to tell the truth.

Again.

“Not unless you go with me.”


	3. Chapter 3

And Alex, damn him, just starts to laugh. He fucking _cackles_ , in doubled over, gasping-for-breath, hysterical laughter.

“You tell me you’re an alien, I tell you I’m part of some secret government alien conspiracy, and our immediate solution is to just run away together.”

His laughter is contagious; Michael can’t help but finally smile back. “Yeah, well, it seems like the best option in a barrel full of crazy. The only other choice would be to spend the rest of our lives apart, and we just did a decade of that. It was more than enough for me.”

The idea sobers Alex up a little and he reaches over to rest his hand on top of Michael’s, his thumb stroking slow sweeps across his wrist. “You know, when I lost my leg, there was a while where I thought I was going to die. And the only thing I kept coming back to, my only real regret, was how things ended with us. That they’d _ended_ at all.” 

Michael drops to his knees in the sand before Alex. He’s trembling a little but it’s not from the cold — the fire is warm at his back and he can feel the heat of Alex’s skin, radiating, so close in front of him. 

“So no more regrets,” he murmurs, and then tugs on Alex’s shirt, pulling him in to kiss him. 

It’s messy and emotional, all clinging hands and thumping hearts; they’re desperate and laughing and wondering if they’ve lost their minds, or if it even matters. 

Because somehow, in the middle of all this, they’re finally happy. Happy in a way neither thought they could ever be again.

“Okay,” Alex finally says, pulling back just enough to catch his breath. “Okay. But we have to be smart about this. We have a little time — the construction crew has barely broken ground, so it will be months before the operations center is up and running. We need to get everyone out in stages. Max can get—“

“—Max?” Michael leans back on his heels, hesitant, uneasy.

But Alex just looks at him, his gaze razor sharp. “You, Max, and Isobel were found wandering the desert together as children. Which tells me that if you’re an alien, then they are, too. And I’m not the only one who will make that connection.”

Michael sighs in defeat, his shoulders slumping, his chin on his chest. All his secrets are out now. 

“Yeah, okay. Max.”

“Max can get a transfer to a precinct in a bigger city, preferably in a different state,” Alex muses. “He’s brokenhearted over Liz, so I can sell that. Then a month or so later, Noah and Isobel can decide to move for a fresh start now that her brother isn’t tying her here. If it raises any suspicion, I’ll still be here to smooth that over. And then…”

Michael looks up at him, watching the firelight dance in his dark eyes, feeling like there’s a hook in his chest that’s hanging on whatever Alex’s next words are. 

“And then…”

“And then it’s down to you and me. Your reputation as the town’s alcoholic loner will come in handy for once — your absence will be easy enough to explain, if anyone even notices you’re gone.”

Michael huffs out a laugh. “I’d be offended by that statement if it wasn’t so accurate.”

“Whereas my enlistment isn’t up for another 18 months,” Alex continues, unperturbed. “So, if I run with you, I’ll have to go AWOL. There won’t be any hiding that, so we would all have to go on the run at that point. And keep running. Forever.” 

He takes a deep breath and squeezes Michael’s hand tight. “Or you could just go without me, let me steer this whole thing away from you until my discharge date, and I can meet up with you in a couple of years. You, and me, and your siblings… we could all be safe. For good.”

Michael is shattered and put back together in the span of a second, stabbed with sharp pain and blanketed in soothing warmth, over and over. He wants to argue, he wants to fight back, he wants any other option than this one. 

But Alex isn’t trying to hurt him. Not with the love that’s so clearly painted across his face.

So all Michael says is, “I hate it when you’re logical.”

Alex smooths a thumb over Michael’s eyebrow. “You’re a genius, Guerin, but you’re all heart. Somebody’s gotta be rational around here.”

He leans forward until their foreheads rest against one another, breathing each other’s air. 

“I don’t want to spend another two years without you,” Michael confesses, voice cracking a little. “I don’t want to spend another two _hours_ without you.”

Alex’s fingertips trace the dip in Michael’s upper lip. “And I don’t want to see you subjected to whatever fate the military has in mind for you if they discover what you are. What your _family_ is.”

He knows Michael’s soft spot, and he’s pressing right on it. It’s for Michael’s own good but still. Damn him for it.

“We lasted a decade apart,” Alex murmurs, staring at Michael’s lips. "What’s another couple of years in the grand scheme of it all?"

Michael holds Alex’s face in his hands, his thumbs stroking slowly over his cheekbones. He feels safe, he feels at home, he feels _loved._ How can he walk away from this again? 

But then, how can he put his family in danger over his own impatience?

“Fine,” he finally huffs. "We’ll do it your way.”

Alex leans forward and kisses him, slow and deep and reverent. 

He barely breaks away, his lips still ghosting across Michael’s as he whispers, “But no one has to leave tonight.”


	4. Chapter 4

They almost don’t make it into the trailer, kissing and stumbling over lawn chairs, nearly tripping up the steps.

The inside is cool and dark when Michael slams the door behind them and crowds Alex up against it, their heads nearly striking the low ceiling but neither noticing. Michael’s got one hand in Alex’s hair and the other on his hip, his lips trailing down the side of his neck until the soft flannel of Alex’s collar tickles at his nose. 

Alex, ever impatient, has already unbuckled Michael’s belt and is hard at work on the buttons of his jeans, trying to shove them down or pull Michael’s shirt up, neither one of them is entirely sure. All that matters is that Alex gets to some skin _soon._  

Michael pulls back for a second to look at him in the thin, silver-tinted darkness. Alex’s face is so soft and his smile is so bright; it’s easy to forget sometimes that he’s made of solid steel straight to the core. That he’s the strongest person Michael has ever met. 

He uses some of that strength to push Michael back, steering them toward the bed, their fumbling fingers working over buttons and zippers and elastic bands as their clothes fall away. 

They collapse into the sheets, naked with one another for the thousandth time — or the first. Because this time their secrets have been laid bare, their truths exposed. This is as real and raw and honest as anyone has ever been. 

And neither one of them can stop smiling. 

Time passes in a blur of skin and salt and sweat and sensation, in feverishly whispered promises and fingers pressed against flesh. It’s absolute familiarity; it’s forging something entirely new. They’re gasping and moaning, hands and lips reverent and rapturous. 

And after, when the sweat has dried off their bare skin and their breath has evened out, when the low glow of the firelight trickles through the open windows and Michael is draped over Alex’s back, his fingertips tracing abstract designs across the broad expanse of skin, he finds the strength to ask, “You’re really okay with all of this? With giving everything up for me?” 

Michael’s voice is so small. It’s barely audible across the minuscule distance between them. 

Which is why Alex’s answer is immediate and firm, the words trying to force their way past his ears and straight into his heart. “You _are_ everything to me, Michael. I’m not giving up anything; I’m gaining a future. A life that I _want_.”

Michael’s hand strays up Alex’s neck, toying with his short hair. “But, as you’re so fond of telling me, you’re an _Airman_ ,” Michael teases. “You’d have to leave that life behind."

Alex shrugs, a smile playing with his lips when he answers, “So I lose the rank of Airman in order to gain a star man. Seems like a fair trade to me.”

Michael laughs, a surprised bubble of joy bursting within him, the sound a low rumble that moves through both their chests. “God, that was cheesy.” He leans in even closer, his lips brushing across the shell of Alex’s ear as he roughly whispers, “Say it again.” 

He presses his lips to the soft skin behind Alex’s ear, then works his way down his neck; he feels the words vibrate through Alex’s throat to his lips.

“You’re my star man.”

There’s still so much to work out, so many details to arrange — not the least of which is breaking the news to Max and Isobel that their entire lives are about to change — but those problems can wait until daybreak. 

For now, they have the night and this bed and the fire burning down to glowing embers outside the window, and it’s enough. 

They are finally enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m on tumblr, and always happy to take random prompts.


End file.
